home news sports culture ideas up-to-date

You are viewing
Volume 38 Issue1
August 28, 2000

To return to the current issue please click here.

The right to know
Proposed legislation requires colleges to post sex offender notification

BY J.W. WATSON
MESA LEGEND
Submitted August 28, 2000

Jeramey Kerr knew nothing about Bruce O’Dell when they first met in a MCC agriculture class in August, 1998.

Then a gullible and naive 18-year-old, Kerr has since found out more about the former Mesa dermatologist than he ever wanted to know.

Jim Allen/MESA LEGEND

It took Jeremy Kerr more than a year to return to the land lab where he says Bruce O'Dell first approached him about having a bizarre "master-slave" relationship. Kerr returns to MCC this semester.

"The man was a genius. It was like hanging out with a dictionary," said Kerr of O’Dell, who was charged by the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office in November, 1999, on 48 counts of sexual assault and four counts of child molestation.

He is now a fugitive with a federal warrant for his arrest. If ever apprehended and subsequently convicted, O’Dell would be exactly the kind of person Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., is targeting with the Campus Protection Act (HR-4407), an amendment to 1996’s "Megan’s Law," which would require colleges nationwide to notify students of violent sex offenders on their campuses.

In "Megan’s Law," a loophole currently exists releasing colleges of such responsibility due to certain student privacy laws, according to Tom Puglia, a Salmon spokesman. "Anyway you can raise students’ level of protection and make them more aware, you’ve got to do it," Puglia said.

According to a June issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, while crime across the country, and specifically forcible sex offenses, are declining, such is not the case on college campuses.

In a 1997 study of 481 campuses of 5,000-plus enrollment, the Chronicle revealed there were a total of 1,114 sex offenses at those schools. That number rose in 1998 to 1,240 such incidents, or an increase of 11.3 percent.

"Sure, crime is going down," Puglia said. "But for sex offenders, college campuses are an easy target."

Kerr wishes O’Dell would have been apprehended and such a law existed before the two became involved in a strange "master-slave" relationship in which the MCC student says O’Dell got him hooked on steroids and drank Kerr’s urine.

"I’m all for this law," said Kerr, who turns 21 next month and will be returning to classes for the first time in a year. "This guy totally screwed up my life."

Kerr said O’Dell, whose license was revoked by the Arizona Board of Medical Examiners this past June for failing to seek sexual psychiatric counseling in 1997, earned his trust by assisting him with weight-training, learning how to create testosterone supplements and frequently taking him out to lunch. Then, in the agriculture department’s Land Lab, Kerr said O’Dell propositioned him to join in the bizarre relationship.

"He was just so well respected by the community, and everyone trusted this guy—even my instructor," said Kerr, who maintains that he never had a sexual relationship with O’Dell.

Kerr hasn’t seen O’Dell since last year. Neither has anyone else.

After posting a $5,000 bond in Graham County where he was arrested at his mother’s home in Safford, he never appeared for a Jan. 10 court date.

"If I had known anything about this guy’s past, I wouldn’t have even spoken to him," Kerr said.  "A lot of people don’t realize who they’re sitting next to in their class could be a danger to their life."

"The Campus Protection Act will give students the power to protect themselves," Puglia said. "If you like Megan’s Law, there’s no reason to not like this. "It’s just a positive situation for everyone."

Puglia said the bill should head to the Senate floor sometime this fall.

Back to Top | Previous Page | Home